Part 17

Therefore I ask you to-night to look at the results of the policies championed by President McKinley on both the occasions when he appealed to the people for their suffrages, and to see how well that appeal has been justified by the event. Most certainly I do not claim all the good that has befallen us during the past six years as due solely to any human policy. No legislation, however wise, no Administration, however efficient, can secure prosperity to a people or greatness to a nation. All that can be done by the law-maker and the administrator is to give the best chance possible for the people of the country themselves to show the stuff that is in them. President McKinley was elected in 1896 on the specific pledge that he would keep the financial honor of the Nation untarnished and would put our economic system on a stable basis, so that our people might be given a chance to secure the return of prosperity. Both pledges have been so well kept that, as is but too often the case, men are beginning to forget how much the keeping of them has meant. When people have become very prosperous they tend to become sluggishly indifferent to the continuation of the policies that brought about their prosperity. At such times as these it is of course a mere law of nature that some men prosper more than others, and too often those who prosper less, in their jealousy of their more fortunate brethren, forget that all have prospered somewhat. I ask you soberly to remember that the complaint made at the present day of our industrial or economic conditions never takes the form of stating that any of our people are less well off than they were seven or eight years back, before President McKinley came in and his policies had a chance to be applied; but that the complaint is that some people have received more than their share of the good things of the world. There was no such complaint eight years ago, in the summer of 1894. Complaint was not then that any one had prospered too much; it was that no one had prospered enough. Let each one of us think of the affairs of his own household and his own business, let each of us compare his standing now with his standing eight years back, and then let him answer for himself whether it is not true that the policies for which William McKinley stood in 1896 have justified themselves thrice over by the results they have brought about.

In 1900 the issues were in part the same, but new ones had been added. Prosperity had returned; the gold standard was assured; our tariff was remodeled on the lines that have marked it at all periods when our well-being was greatest. But as must often happen, the President elected on certain issues was obliged to face others entirely unforeseen. Rarely indeed have our greatest men made issues—they have shown their greatness by meeting them as they arose. President McKinley faced the problems of the Spanish War and those that followed it exactly as he had faced the problems of our economic and financial needs. As a sequel to the war with Spain we found ourselves in possession of the Philippines under circumstances which rendered it necessary to subdue a formidable insurrection which made it impossible for us with honor or with regard to the welfare of the island to withdraw therefrom. The occasion was seized by the opponents of the President for trying to raise a new issue, on which they hoped they might be more successful than on the old. The clamor raised against him was joined in not only by many honest men who were led astray by a mistaken view or imperfect knowledge of the facts, but by all who feared effort, who shrank from the rough work of endeavor. The campaign of 1900 had to be fought largely upon the new issue thus raised. President McKinley met it squarely. Two years and eight months ago, before his second nomination, he spoke as follows:

“We believe that the century of free government which the American people have enjoyed has not rendered them irresolute and faithless, but has fitted them for the great task of lifting up and assisting to better conditions and larger liberty those distant peoples who through the issue of battle have become our wards. Let us fear not. There is no occasion for faint hearts, no excuse for regrets. Nations do not grow in strength, the cause of liberty and law is not advanced by the doing of easy things. The harder the task the greater will be the result, the benefit, and the honor. To doubt our power to accomplish it is to lose faith in the soundness and strength of our popular institutions.... We have the new care and can not shift it. And, breaking up the camp of ease and isolation, let us bravely and hopefully and soberly continue the march of faithful service, and falter not until the work is done.... The burden is our opportunity. The opportunity is greater than the burden.”

There spoke the man who preached the gospel of hope as well as the gospel of duty, and on the issue thus fairly drawn between those who said we would do our new work well and triumphantly and those who said we would fail lamentably in the effort, the contest was joined. We won. And now I ask you, two years after the victory, to look across the seas and judge for yourselves whether or not the promise has been kept. The prophets of disaster have seen their predictions so completely falsified by the event that it is actually difficult to arouse even a passing interest in their failure. To answer them now, to review their attack on our army, is of merely academic interest. They played their brief part of obstruction and clamor; they said their say; and the current of our life went over them and they sank under it as did their predecessors who, thirty-six years before, had declared that another and greater war was a failure, that another and greater struggle for true liberty was only a contest for subjugation in which the United States could never succeed. The insurrection among the Filipinos has been absolutely quelled. The war has been brought to an end sooner than even the most sanguine of us dared to hope. The world has not in recent years seen any military task done with more soldierly energy and ability; and done, moreover, in a spirit of great humanity. The strain on the army was terrible, for the conditions of climate and soil made their work harassing to an extraordinary degree, and the foes in the field were treacherous and cruel, not merely toward our men, but toward the great multitude of peaceful islanders who welcomed our rule. Under the strain of wellnigh intolerable provocation there were shameful instances, as must happen in all wars, where the soldiers forgot themselves, and retaliated evil for evil. There were one hundred thousand of our men in the Philippines, a hundred thousand hired for a small sum a month apiece, put there under conditions that strained their nerves to the breaking point, and some of the hundred thousand did what they ought not to have done. But out of a hundred thousand men at home, have all been faultless? Every effort has been made to detect such cases, to punish the offenders, and to prevent any recurrence of the deed. It is a cruel injustice to the gallant men who fought so well in the Philippines not to recognize that these instances were exceptional, and that the American troops who served in the far-off tropic islands deserve praise the same in kind that has always been given to those who have well and valiantly fought for the honor of our common flag and common country. The work of civil administration has kept pace with the work of military administration, and when on July 4 last amnesty and peace were declared throughout the islands the civil government assumed the complete control. Peace and order now prevail and a greater measure of prosperity and of happiness than the Filipinos have ever hitherto known in all their dark and checkered history; and each one of them has a greater measure of liberty, a greater chance of happiness, and greater safety for his life and property than he or his forefathers have ever before known.

Thus we have met each task that has confronted us during the past six years. Thus we have kept every promise made in 1896 and 1900. We have a right to be proud of the memories of the last six years. But we must remember that each victory only opens the chance for a new struggle; that the remembrance of triumphs achieved in the past is of use chiefly if it spurs us to fresh effort in the present. No nation has ever prospered as we are prospering now, and we must see to it that by our own folly we do not mar this prosperity. Yet we must see to it also that wherever wrong flourishes it be repressed. It is not the habit of our people to shirk issues, but squarely to face them. It is not the habit of our people to treat a good record in the past as anything but a reason for expecting an even better record in the present; and no Administration, gentlemen, should ask to be judged save on those lines. The tremendous growth of our industrialism has brought to the front many problems with which we must deal; and I trust that we shall deal with them along the lines indicated in speech and in action by that profound jurist and upright and fearless public servant who represents Pennsylvania in the Cabinet—Attorney-General Knox. The question of the so-called trusts is but one of the questions we must meet in connection with our industrial system. There are many of them and they are serious; but they can and will be met. Time may be needed for making the solution perfect; but it is idle to tell this people that we have not the power to solve such a problem as that of exercising adequate supervision over the great industrial combinations of to-day. We have the power and we shall find out the way. We shall not act hastily or recklessly; but we have firmly made up our minds that a solution, and a right solution, shall be found, and found it will be.

No nation as great as ours can expect to escape the penalty of greatness, for greatness does not come without trouble and labor. There are problems ahead of us at home and problems abroad, because such problems are incident to the working out of a great national career. We do not shrink from them. Scant is our patience with those who preach the gospel of craven weakness. No nation under the sun ever yet played a part worth playing if it feared its fate overmuch—if it did not have the courage to be great. We of America, we, the sons of a nation yet in the pride of its lusty youth, spurn the teachings of distrust, spurn the creed of failure and despair. We know that the future is ours if we have in us the manhood to grasp it, and we enter the new century girding our loins for the contest before us, rejoicing in the struggle, and resolute so to bear ourselves that the Nation’s future shall even surpass her glorious past.

AT THE BANQUET TO JUSTICE HARLAN, THE NEW WILLARD HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C., DECEMBER 9, 1902

_Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen_:

It is a peculiar privilege to be here to-night as one of those gathered to do homage to a career which has honored America. It is difficult to say certain of the truths which must need be said without being guilty of truisms in saying them. It is not an idle boast of this country when we speak of the court upon which Mr. Justice Harlan sits as the most illustrious and important court in all the civilized world. It is not merely our own people who say that—it is the verdict of other nations as well.

Mr. Justice Harlan has served for a quarter of a century on that court. During that time he has exercised an influence over the judicial statesmanship of the country of a kind such as is possible only under our own form of government. For the judges of the Supreme Court of the land must be not only great jurists, but they must be great constructive statesmen. And the truth of what I say is illustrated by every study of American statesmanship, for in not one serious study of American political life will it be possible to omit the immense part played by the Supreme Court in the creation, not merely the modification, of the great policies through and by means of which the country has moved on to its present position.

Thrice fortunate is the court when it has as one of its members a man who has played a great part in other spheres of our composite national life. Mr. Justice Harlan came from Kentucky, a State in which the patriotism of the people was put to so peculiarly a severe test in the Civil War. In the States of the further North it was easy for the man to make up his mind on which side he would unsheathe his sword. In the States of the further South it was equally easy. In Kentucky the task was a difficult one. I remember, Mr. Justice, being told by a Kentuckian, who was a stanch friend of yours and one of the greatest lawyers and most patriotic citizens whom this country had—John Mason Brown—that he came back from a trip from the West as a young man of twenty-one, just at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, just after Sumter had been fired upon, and his mother brought down to him the sword that his father had carried in the Mexican War, and said to him:

“My son, this is the sword your father carried. I hope you will draw it on the side that defends the flag for which your father fought, but, for one side or the other, draw it you must.”

In any audience in any State of the Union, take it as far north as you wish, I can appeal with confidence to the people I address when I say that next to the homage we pay to the men who proved the truth of their endeavor as they battled in the blue uniform is the homage we pay to the men who, with equal sincerity, with equal devotion to the right as it was given them to see the right, wore the gray. And none pay that tribute of regard so frankly as those who themselves wore the blue in battle.

And having said that, I am sure that none of my friends who fought in the Confederate service will misunderstand me or will grudge what I am about to say when I say that the greatest debt owed by this country to any set of men is owed by it to those men of the so-called border States—the men who in statesmanship followed Clay and the Crittendens and the Blairs; the men who as soldiers fought on the same side with Thomas and Farragut, the men who were for the Union, without regard to whether their immediate associates were for it or not. In New York, in Massachusetts, in Illinois, in Iowa, the men who stood for the Union went with the stream. In parts of Kentucky, of Virginia, of Missouri, they stemmed the torrent. And, gentlemen, I am half a Southerner myself. Two of my uncles fought in the Confederate Navy. One of them served under the father-in-law of Vice-Governor Luke Wright, of the Philippine Islands. And so I think I have the right to say that, knowing the Southern people as I do, I would heartily advocate fighting twice as hard as you fought from 1861 to 1865 for the privilege of staying in the same Union with them.

The man to be a great statesman on the bench of the Supreme Court must have many qualities, and fortunate are we that this evening we can point to Justice Harlan as embodying them. A good citizen must be a good citizen in peace and in war. He must have the decent and orderly virtues, and he must have the essential manliness for the lack of which no good intention can atone. It will be a bad thing for the nation if ever we grow as a nation to submit to the suppression of efficiency and morality, if we ever grow to accept the belief that we are to have two camps, in one of which will be grouped the men who mean well, but who don’t do things, and in the other the men who do things, but who do not mean well.

The art of successful self-government is not an easy art for people or for individuals. It comes to our people here as the inheritance of ages of effort. It can be thrown away; it can be unlearned very easily, and it surely will be unlearned if we forget the vital need not merely of preaching, but of practicing both sets of virtues—if we forget the vital need of having the average citizen not only a good man, but a man.

It is a fine thing to have on the Supreme Court a man who dared venture all for the great prize of death in battle when the country called for him, and a man who, after the war was closed, did not content himself with living an ignoble life on the plea that he had done so well it was not necessary to do more, but who continued to do his duty as a citizen all the better because he had done it as a soldier; the man who remembered that duty done, to be of practical use, must serve not as an excuse for not doing further duty, but as an incentive, as a spur, to make him feel ashamed that his present or his future should fall short of his past.

So, Judge Harlan, I greet you personally, sir. I wish to express my own personal debt to you for your influence, for your example, but I wish far more, speaking as the representative of all our people, to express the infinite sense of obligation we have to you for having shown by your life what the type of fearless American citizenship should be.

RECEPTION OF A DELEGATION FROM THE NATIONAL BOARD OF TRADE, WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 15, 1903

Mr. Randall, speaking for the delegation, said: Mr. President, we have come here merely to present ourselves and to make our annual call on the President of the United States. We thank you for meeting us.

The President responded: I shall not try to make you any speech. I wish simply to say what a very real pleasure it is to see you, and also to say this—that I am glad to see the meetings of the big business interests take place sometimes in Washington. Nothing can be better both for the business interests and for legislation than to have as close a touch as possible between the elective representatives here and the men whose welfare is so interwoven with what is done in the halls of Congress. It is a very great help to all of us to have you come here. I thank you for coming.

AT THE BANQUET OF THE YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, NEW WILLARD HOTEL, WASHINGTON, D. C., JAN. 19, 1903

_Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen_:

It is no accident that we should meet here to celebrate a record of fifty years—that period which covers the half century which has seen the gigantic industrial change of the world, which has seen the fruition of the forces that have brought about a revolution, socially and industrially, within the fifty years such as was hardly seen within any preceding five centuries. Life has been very intense, has been carried on at a very high pressure, during that half century; more intense, carried on at a higher pressure, than ever before. That means of course that all the forces have been raised to a higher degree of power—the forces of evil, and, thank heaven, also the forces of good. If it had not been for the work of such organizations as this, for such organized effort as that represented by you here to-night, the immense material progress of the world during the past half century would have been a progress that would have told for ill for the nations, not for good. We can say with truth that we are better off than we were. We can say that the creed of those who have faith is the right creed as justified in present history, because side by side with this great material development, and with an even stronger rate of growth than the forces of evil, have grown the forces of good. If it had not been for the work done by those who founded this movement, and of course by all those who have taken part in similar movements, in all movements for good, in every movement for social betterment, for civic betterment, in every movement to make men decent and manly and strong—if it had not been for the work done by them, if they had sat supine and thought things would make themselves better, things would have become steadily worse. We see all around us people who say, “Oh, well, things will come out all right.” So they will; but not because there are men who are content to _say_ that they will come out all right; but because there is a sufficient number of earnest men with the root of righteousness in them who are bound to _do_ what will make them come out right.

The remarkable concentration of our lives during the last half century has rendered it possible for anything that is evil to manifest itself more strongly than ever before, and therefore made it necessary for us to see that the good has a corresponding development. A hundred years ago there was no such need for the Young Men’s Christian Associations, for the invaluable Young Women’s Christian Associations. Life was simpler. The temptation would come surely to every man, but it would not come so frequently and in so intense a form. As the forces of evil manifested themselves in stronger and stronger form they had to be met, if they were to be successfully grappled with, by organized effort, by the effort of the many, which must always be stronger than the effort of one; and the successful effort to combat the forces of evil had to take just such shape as has been given to the growth of the Young Men’s Christian Associations. It had to take the shape of combining decency and efficiency. There are many things that are so true that it seems almost trite to speak of them, and yet it is continually necessary to speak of them. There have been philanthropic movements led and supported by most excellent people, which, nevertheless, have produced results altogether incommensurable with the efforts spent, because they failed to combine as this movement has combined a recognition of the needs of human nature with a resolute effort to make that human nature better.